“It’s my policy not to review funerals.”

People should pay more attention. Everyone wants attention, but no one wants to give attention.

I am very interested in loyalty, even if the person to whom one is loyal is flawed, criminal, or otherwise in the wrong.

I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud.

It annoys the hell out of me when people say, This is the kitchen, and this is the bathroom. What am I, Helen Keller? I mean, it’s pretty obvious when you’re in a kitchen and when you’re not.

Sometimes you can do things for others that you can’t do for yourself.

If you don’t write the book you have to write, everything breaks.

A lot of people get flipped out if you’re quiet. They say stuff like, What are you thinking? And if they don’t start interrogating you, they start talking, going on and on about stuff that’s totally irrelevant, and the silence gets so big and loud that it’s scary.

Books tell you more about their owners than the owners do.

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable.

You really can’t write well if you’re thinking about what the reviewers might say.

I’m very interested in compassion – compassion for oneself and others. I write about very complicated characters and experiences and try to do it without judging the character or the action.

I’m nothing you can catch now. I am black powder, I am singe, I am the bomb that bursts the night.

I’d say our ability to supersize emotions are American-made special effects. In European countries, people mostly stay close to home and whatever rage there is simmers under the surface – it’s what made the plays of Shakespeare and Harold Pinter so good.

Was this the big one or was this the small tremor, the warning? Does it get better – does the sensation of being in a dream underwater go away?

Life is lived on its ownother’s shoulders are used only at the time of funeral.

A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation’s young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.

My mum had 14 pregnancies – but only four of us survived. We had a little sister born for a few days and she died. There had to be a funeral.

God is coming to intersect us in our funeral processions.

Each Act of kindness is a seat filled at your funeral, a tear dropped upon your death.

Science advances one funeral at a time.

Science advances funeral by funeral.

Our memories lurch to a reluctant halt in their funeral march, so I can pour salt over them one last time.